I'm in Minot, North Dakota. I drove up to visit my best friend, because today is her birthday. Her 30th Birthday. it's kind of a big deal.
We drove up to the International Peace Gardens, so we could stand on the border with a foot in Canada and a foot in The United States. The Peace Gardens are full of flowers, trees, lush grass (I walked barefoot for a bit...and I gave a tree a big hug) and beautiful monuments.
The newest addition to the Gardens is a memorial made of steel girders from the World Trade Center. It was moving and tragic, a painful memory of 9/11. There was a memorial plaque, and a design sketch for how they plan to finish the monument, which read: Reflect, Recall, Remember, Forgive.
I overheard someone say, "Forgive? I don't think so."
Forgiveness? wow. that's a tough one. Forgiving is hard even on a small scale.
But one of the things I've learned in the past few years, while working through my own feelings of anger and learning to forgive, is that Freedom is in Forgiving. We all work through our pain and begin to forgive in our own time, but wow! How free and light we feel when we finally do let go.
This week, use any (or all) of the following words in your writing and art: Reflect, Recall, Remember, Forgive, Freedom.
About Me
- Karen
- Every now and then, darkness settles in. Words get lost, mangled, and can't find their way out. Writing gets blocked, the muse is shy, uninspired, passionless. Sometimes, we need a kick-start, a reminder, beautiful words from a friend. Like this from my dear June, who told me "The world is a better place when you are writing Karen" and effectively re-kindled those creative embers.
1 comment:
nice post, Karen, thanks for sharing your own journey of forgiveness. sorry for the folks who don't think they want to 'go there.' seems to me a part of being able to forgive is recognizing that we need forgiveness ourselves. if we're all busy thinking we're good it's harder to have grace for others.
bh
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